Leveling the Heights

Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whom he has taken by his right hand to subdue nations before him and strip the loins of kings, to force gateways before him that their gates be closed no more: I will go before you leveling the heights. I will shatter the bronze gateways, smash the iron bars. I will give you the hidden treasures, the secret hoards, that you may know that I am the Lord.

-Isaiah 45:1-3
Harlem, 1974The cop thumped on the Eldorado’s window with his nightstick and Darius jumped in his seat before turning his head and rolling down the window.

​Last Caress

​ A soggy couch flipped
on its arm
the only boost
to a broken window
hidden around back
of the hotel.
Finger tips scrape
the ledge
arms shake as I pull myself up.
The rot of stagnant urine suffocates before I’m through the window.

​Ruby Red

​A vast forest spans Western North Carolina, one of the largest tracts of forested land east of the Mississippi River including Pisgah and Cherokee National Forests extending into Tennessee. In the hamlet of Clear Creek, adjacent to this forest, Jonathan McLean was born July 1, 1930. Jonathan lived in a small frame house built by his father and grandfather, who gifted the family property to build their house. Jonathan’s grandmother lived nearby on a five-acre homestead. Jonathan’s grandfather died in 1928, after retiring from the railroad leaving his wife Edith the house and land plus a small pension from his years of service with the railroad. This was the scene of Jonathan’s early life.

Anger on Peaks

god save the tsar

God said to me: go deep into the night; the ghetto of man’s heart,
the causeway of his soul, it opens for you to stride, to mystify, to howl upon
as bride, for the world is full of actors and they act on vacant shores;your heart is an empire but your flesh shall be the door.